George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

[65] and his beneficiary, made to him the sign of adora-

Chap. II.}

tion.¹ The old Roman emperor was the highest pontiff: with the charge of universal monarchy, Charlemagne, who held the keys of the grave of St. Peter, took to himself the supreme direction of the church.²

Orthodox Christendom saw in this new Roman empire the eternal ordinance of God which was to endure to the end of time, so that every prophecy might be fulfilled and Christ become the lord of the whole earth. Leo the Third recognised in him the sovereignty over every temporal authority; but the line of the emperors was hardly acknowledged at Rome to be by a fixed rule entitled evermore to unqualified allegiance as lords over the church. Nor was it for the interest of mankind, nor of the empire itself, that the popes should have made such abdication of their independence; for, though by the ensuing conflict it was compelled to pass through centuries of sorrow, it escaped that which was worse. ‘Germany has been ordained by fate to illuminate the nations;’³ but not in this way was it to spread light and freedom. Could Charlemagne, by renewing Roman caesarism, have joined dominion over the individual and collective conscience to the fulness of military, legislative, and administrative power, a sameness of forms, a stagnant monotony of thought, and the slumber of creative genius might have lasted for thousands of years. Justice and truth are the same,